Conversations on War
by DameNellie
Summary: What did the Cullens do during World War II? A series of conversations between the Cullens set during the War about honour, duty and the proper place of vampires in the human world. Canon, Pre-Twilight. Begun from prompts from The Twilight 25
1. Chapter 1: Prelude

**The Twilight Twenty-Five  
Prompt: **Prelude**  
Pen name: **DameNellie**  
Pairing: **Edward**  
Rating: **T

**A/N: I'm planning to use The Twilight 25 prompts to write a series of conversations between the Cullens set during World War II. I always wondered what they did during the war, especially given that three virile young men would have been conspicuous if they were trying to pass as humans at the time. **

**Huge thanks to Loveinthelies for her help with this chapter. This is the first thing I've ever posted so any feedback would be appreciated. **

**Obviously Stephenie Meyer owns the copyright to these characters so the usual disclaimers apply.**

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Chapter 1: Prelude

Edward Cullen's greatest dream as a youth was to become a soldier. He had grown up listening to tales of the Civil War from the elders in his family. Stories of valour and bravery, of sacrifice and honour. His father, Edward Masen Sr, had been a respected member of the Chicago community and a politically active lawyer. He had raised his son with a firm belief in justice and integrity.

When the Great War broke out in Europe, Edward was barely a teenager. But by the time America joined the war, Edward was 16 and full of youthful vigour and passion. He longed to come of age so that he could join the war and seek glory on the fields of France. His father insisted he focus on his studies. He told his son that he could make more of a difference in the world with a good education than as canon fodder in the trenches of Europe. Edward's mother, Elizabeth, prayed nightly for an end to the war so that her beloved, only son would be spared from the draft. Her prayers became more fervent as his birthday approached and the conscription age was lowered to 18.

While his parents tried hard to interest him in other careers, Edward watched his school chums enlist and ship out to exotic foreign locations. He waited eagerly for his birthday and wondered where he would be posted. He dreamed of the excitement of war, of returning home a hero, laden with medals.

But then fate intervened.

The Spanish Influenza spread through Chicago, first infecting Edward Sr, then his wife and son. The family patriarch was the first to pass, but mother and son's demise began to follow swiftly.

As he lay dying in a crowded hospital, Edward raged against the injustice that threatened to rob him of his hero's death. Instead, he was condemned to wither away anonymously in a city hospital, half a world away from the battlefields. He prayed to God to spare him so that he could join his friends in the theatre of war.

But when death came, it was not in the form he expected. In the end, it was neither a soldier's death, nor the influenza that was to claim him. It was a vampire, Carlisle Cullen, who had made a reluctant promise to Edward's dying mother and had fulfilled it in the only way he knew how. He had killed Edward in order to save him, so that he could be reborn as his companion. He could not have known how Edward would struggle with the horror of what he had become, nor that he would be burdened with a unique gift. He could read minds.

By the time Edward had come to terms with his new life and had gained control over his monstrous instincts, the Great War was long over. However, he could not shake the feeling that he had missed his chance to be a hero, to prove his valour among men. For years, he fought to find meaning in his new existence. He tried to follow his mentor into medicine but found he did not have the patience for it. The struggle against his baser desires was too much to find it fulfilling.

After years of this effort to find his purpose, Edward rebelled. With his unique talent for mind-reading, he felt he could make a difference amongst humans by removing the worst of them - the murderers and rapists, the scum of society. For four years, he lived a vigilante life and tried to pretend that it was honourable. He imagined himself a solider against evil. He told himself that it was no different than his ancestors killing Confederate soldiers in the Civil War. He was doing it for the greater good, so that justice might prevail, so that good could triumph over evil.

But life is lonely in an army of one.

Without others to share his cause, he began to question how different he was from those he killed. As the Great Depression swept over the nation, he wondered how many had been driven to acts of violence by the desperation and the madness of the times. He feared he was depriving some sinners of a chance at redemption, or that he was giving the worst offenders too quick a death. Most of all, he wondered whether he was really being honourable or whether killing had become a selfish act.

The fact was, he enjoyed it.

He savoured the hunt for a new victim, the planning of the kill, the feeling of moral superiority when he accused his target of their crimes. Most of all, he craved the blood like a drug. Animal blood had never tasted this good, nor had it ever infused his every atom with such intoxicating power. He knew he was addicted and this scared him. He worried that he had begun to enjoy it too much. That look of horror, the begging of his victims was no longer off-putting. He was so afraid that he had begun to enjoy that, too. This surely made him a monster, no better than those he hunted.

So in the end, he gave up his vigilante life.

He realised that Carlisle was right - that sharing your life with others was the only way to cling to whatever humanity remained in them. Being a third wheel to Esme and Carlisle's love and adoration had to be better than being alone. He craved company and conversation. The time alone had almost driven him mad with the inane thoughts of humans. He craved Carlisle's educated and thoughtful conversation to drown them out. He wanted to learn, to put his heightened vampire intelligence to better use than hunting evil like a predator. He hoped that, in time, he would find a way to live honourably. Even if he was damned to this soulless life, he wanted to try to live the kind of existence that would have made his father proud. He could still adhere to those values with which he had been raised in his human life and which Carlisle had reaffirmed for him.

As war broke out in Europe once again, in the Fall of 1939, Edward Cullen had been on this Earth for close to 40 years. If he had been still a human, he might have been considered too old to enlist. He would probably have missed the opportunity to fight yet again.

But he is no longer human.

He is eternally youthful, preternaturally strong. He is invulnerable to human weapons. He does not need sleep and can fight without fatigue. He possesses a superhuman intelligence that has allowed him to master several languages with perfect fluency. He has senses better than any animal, making it impossible for any enemy to catch him by surprise. Better still than any other of his kind, he can read the minds of those around him, giving him the potential to be the perfect spy. He could be the perfect soldier.

However, he has one impediment.

He's a vampire, a secret which can never be revealed to humans.

Once again, he finds himself unable to fulfil his boyhood dream of becoming a soldier. The desire is more complex now than it was as a boy - it has less to do with glory and more to do with his need to feel worthy. He knows that, were he human, he would want to join this cause and fight with his countrymen.

In fact, this time of upheaval leads each of the Cullens to reflect on their place in the world of humans. Carlisle, who has dedicated his life to peaceful service to humanity and has seen too many wars senselessly ravage the human world. Esme, who has finally found meaning in the family she always craved and who fears losing any of them. Rosalie, who is still coming to terms with the violent end to her humanity and the beginnings of a life she never chose. Emmett, still a new-born raging with energy, who would have been conscripted had he remained human.

Each has their own perspective. What follows is a series of conversations set during World War Two.

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**Thank you for reading. Feedback of any sort will be greatly appreciated!**


	2. Chapter 2: Fragments

**The Twilight Twenty-Five  
Prompt: **Fragments**  
Pen name: **DameNellie**  
Pairing: **Edward**  
Rating: **T

**A/N: Apologies for the wait on this chapter. I really struggled with it. Obviously I've missed the TT25 deadline but I'm continuing with this story because I've got a bunch of chapters written. Updates should be more regular from here on in. They'll all be short chapters based on a single conversation or scene. Some reviewers asked if Edward would be going off to war. As interesting as that'd be, I'm sticking to canon for this one.**

**Huge thanks to Lovinthelies for her amazing beta work and general loveliness. She deletes all my 'but's and leaves my Australian spellings intact.**

**Obviously Stephenie Meyer owns the copyright to these characters so the usual disclaimers apply.**

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Chapter 2: Fragments

_Hoquiam, Washington, 1939._

When Carlisle returned from his hospital shift one summer evening, Edward was in the living room, listening intently to the radio. He had taken a keen interest in European affairs ever since their trip to Paris and Berlin two years before.

"Hitler gets bolder by the day, you know," Edward said simply before Carlisle had even a chance to say hello.

_I thought coming to this place would remove us__from__the turmoils of world events, so we could live simpler lives._ "So I have heard."

Edward raised an eyebrow as he answered Carlisle's thoughts rather than his words.

"There is no escaping this modern world, Carlisle. With radio and telephones, the news travels faster than even we can outrun it."

"What is the news today?" Carlisle inquired.

"The Germans have invaded Czechoslovakia. It seems they're intent on conquering Europe."

"Hmm. Well, we can't know what their intentions are. How much of this has been in the news?"

"Not a lot. We get only fragments from the American wires. Most people here seem content to remain isolationists."

"But you aren't?"

Edward paused, and as he did, he could hear Carlisle remembering him right after his change; he was full of fervour and had wanted to use his new strength to go to war, to fight alongside his friends on the fields of France. It had been his dream as a man, and he didn't understand why he had to give it up when he was now more powerful and invincible than before. It was only when he realised the consuming power of his bloodthirst that he had reluctantly given up on that dream.

"You think I'm naive. I can see it in your mind."

"No, Edward, not naive. Human politics and war are no place for our kind."

"But we're not like other vampires, Carlisle. We have integrated ourselves so much into this human world that you've devoted your life to _helping_ them. How can you say this is none of our concern?"

"Edward, I know that you hold the principle of justice firmly, but what can you really hope to change about a political situation half a world away?"

"I refuse to believe that we must stand by and watch Europe become consumed by war again. I should think you'd take more of an interest in this, Carlisle. Long as it may have been since you've lived there, you were born English, you've lived elsewhere in Europe. You still have friends there."

"I have also seen so many wars, Edward, and conflict is inevitable. It is human nature to want to conquer. They aren't like us, Edward. They become attached to their land and their countries. Those petty grievances escalate into conflict. This has always been the way of humans. We can only try our best to help people on a more personal basis."

It was then that Carlisle's mind allowed Edward just a glimpse of the suffering he'd seen -- the futility of it all when one war would end, only to have the same conflict re-ignited decades or centuries later.

Carlisle looked him in the eye, and Edward could see his pain. He still harboured such a love for humanity, but he had borne witness to so much hate, pettiness and violence over the years.

"So we should just give up? I need to believe there are some things worth fighting for, Carlisle. Otherwise, what is the point of our existence?"

"I've asked myself this many times since my change, but I'm not sure I'll ever know. The best we can do is try to live a good life and be of service to each other."

"But we have all this strength, this power. We have the ability to remove evil more easily than humans."

"Oh, Edward, I thought you'd given up on this vigilantism."

"This is not the same, Carlisle, and you know it."

"Is it really, Edward? Who are you to judge which side is more just? And if you're thinking of killing people, who are you going to choose?"

"You can't tell me that you think the Germans are justified!"

"Edward, no issue is black and white. I certainly don't agree with the German offensive, but that doesn't mean I can't understand some of their rhetoric. However, these are not issues for you or me to decide."

"Surely you can see how dangerous Hitler is! He is hellbent on creating a German empire devoid of critics. Look at how he's dispossessed his own Jewish citizens already! It's bound get worse."

"I'm not disagreeing with you, Edward. I'm merely saying that there is nothing we can do about it."

"But there is! The German people are under the thrall of this madman. If he were removed, perhaps cooler heads would prevail."

Now_he is being naive_, Carlisle thought

"I never took you for a cynic, Carlisle."

"I don't think I'd call myself a cynic. I've simply lived long enough to know that killing one man will not change the greater problems of society."

"I'm not talking about curing all ills. I'm talking about preventing a war that will surely kill thousands of innocent people."

"And you're so sure that killing Hitler would do that? Edward, you cannot possibly be foolish enough to think he's the only one who believes this way."

"I just don't see how you can be content to do nothing." As he said this, Edward could hear Carlisle's fear that he would leave them again. He could feel his anguish and worry.

Carlisle knew that Edward was listening, that he was betraying his own fears, but perhaps this was the only way to get through to him.

"Edward, I understand the need to be of service to the world, but--"

"I won't leave again, Carlisle. Not like that."

And Edward meant it. He'd learnt the hard way that he could not survive without his family to keep him grounded. He knew he didn't want to be a monster. But he was beyond frustrated at being bound in this way. He was sure that there was something he could do.

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**This is a learning experience for me, so any and all feedback is appreciated.**


	3. Chapter 3: Rapacious

_**A/N: I know it's been a really long wait but I've got so much of this planned out and half-written that I couldn't just leave it unfinished**_

_**A reminder that this is a series of pre-canon one-shots set during the Second World War**_

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Volterra, Italia, 1939

My dearest Carlisle,

It has been far too long since I have seen you. I hope this letter finds you well. In fact, I have heard whisperings that you have made some new additions to your little 'famiglia'. You seem to have acquired quite a taste for human blood after all these years, even though, as always, you have taken your own idiosyncratic approach. Although, four humans in almost as many centuries is not too prolific a pace.

You must be developing quite a taste for it now. Are you still persisting with your diet of vermin? Surely not, Carlisle! I would not be surprised if you were helping yourself at that hospital you are working at. I always admired your control but now I suspect you may be using it to skim a little off the top, no?

I must confess to being quite delighted by these turns of events, even if I still cannot understand why you persist with your peculiar lifestyle. In fact, I should warn you that Caius and Marcus remain unamused and they are wary of your growing numbers. I have assured them that you are the very model of loyalty. Sadly, not everyone is as open-minded as I.

These times of war and upheaval only make it more difficult to keep our wilder brethren in check. Some of our more savage and uncivilised brothers seem to see war as an opportunity to let our standards of secrecy slip. I cannot tell you how tiresome this makes it to manage. To be sure, the humans are less likely to be paying attention to our activities in times like these. However, that is simply no reason to risk all that we have built.

Oh Carlisle, I can't tell you how bothersome all this is. I do wish you would reconsider my offer to come and work with us again. Young Edward would also be such an asset to us in these times. Well, never-mind. You always were so stubborn!

It is all extremely bothersome. I have half a mind to kill that silly little Austrian myself. However, I fear that his particular brand of madness seems to have infected the entire German nation and one simply cannot decimate the lot of them, no matter how tempting it may be. No, we have worked too hard to establish the laws of our kind to let some petty human squabble ruin everything we have built. At least here in Italy we have Mussolini who has done great things to maintain order and has proved very susceptible to our... incentives. With any luck, he shall prevail and Volterra will remain untarnished by the unsightly machinery of war. Can you imagine how ghastly it would be to have hundreds of little soldier men trampling all over our city as if they were so strong and powerful! I'm sure even I would lose patience very quicklye and give the go ahead to wipe them all out. And really, who wants to have to clean up such a mess?

The war does afford us some opportunities, however. With the humans otherwise occupied, it is the perfect opportunity to collect and add to our store of wealth. Just look at the way the Germans are rounding up people and throwing them out of their homes. They're confiscating some really excellent treasures which I'm sure could be obtained very easily. I know your taste runs to the more religious art and I shall be sure to be on the lookout for anything that may interest you. Although it seems to be the Jewish humans who are the target, for some reason I do not care to grasp, so you might be out of luck!

I would advise you to stay in the Americas for the moment. It really is so bothersome in Europe at present. However, it occurs to me that you might like to practice your 'doctoring' skills on the battlefield to add to your little collection. Although with all the blood flowing, I am sure it would test even your famous restraint. The thought itself makes my own mouth water.

Well, it does not do to dwell, does it? I shall endeavour to keep in touch more regularly. I would implore you to keep us informed of your little famiglia's movements during these troublesome times. I should like to be assured that there will be no untoward involvement from your little group in human affairs. I know you have always had sympathies for the humans but I will remind you that human politics is beneath our concern and becoming involved will be seen as a violation our laws. Of course, I am sure I have nothing to worry about from you, my dear Carlisle. I just thought it best to be clear. With all these social liberties that goes on amongst the humans, who knows what ideas someone might get!

I believe Marcus and Caius would also appreciate knowing a little more about the additions to your 'family'. It would be polite to put their minds at ease, would it not?

Give my love to Edward and Esme. And do remind young Edward that we would be delighted to meet him anytime he chooses. He has such potential and it would be a shame to let that go to waste. But, alas, I shall bite my tongue on that matter. For now.

Your good friend,

Aro


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